


Private Moments

by laughablyunimportant



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Blood, Canonical Character Death, Dream Bubbles, Gen, Sadstuck, self-hate
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-28
Updated: 2014-05-28
Packaged: 2018-01-26 20:58:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1702328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laughablyunimportant/pseuds/laughablyunimportant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Davesprite relives the memory of Bro's death.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Private Moments

**Author's Note:**

> In response to the prompt: Remember when Davesprite watched his bro die in front of him?

It's a really long three years. 

Not as long as those thirteen and a half years spent just waiting for something to happen, probably. Definitely not as long as those six months after John died, when it was just you and Rose seeing how far the game would let you play in a doomed session.

But it's still a pretty damn long time. And the thing about dream bubbles out in the longest yard is, you don't really run into anyone else. The only memories you get to experience while you're sleeping are yours, over and over and over again.

Even the painful ones.

(Especially the painful ones.) 

 

This is one of the painful ones.

Even with all the weird sprite shit, and that mess of feelings about not being real Dave, and that squashed down resentment that Dave's bro was still in his session, when you'd never seen yours—you felt good. Awesome, even. You'd fought Bro all your life and here you were fighting with him—not even alpha Dave got to do that. 

Like, it was dangerous as shit and Jack having all those weird prototype powers that seemed to come and go at will was tricky, but Bro moved with you, in conjunction with you—like this is where he belonged. Or where you belonged, maybe. Next to him.

At first, the green fires seemed like just another prototyping power Jack was calling on. You were ready for him, even as the flames rose. Ready for him, even if you really weren't.

Then Bro shoved you out of the way, steel screeching against steel as he blocked the thrust meant for you. A flash of green and suddenly Jack was behind Bro, Bro unbalanced and pitching forward with no one to counter his force. Jack planted his shitty sword right in your brother's back, driving him to the ground.

Then he came for you.

It wasn't even a fight. You've had your ass beaten plenty of times, but this wasn't that. Didn't come close. One second Jack was next to your Bro, then he was towering over you, delivering a vicious kick to your stomach, then your head. Everything was still spinning when you felt him pull at your wing, and if somewhere in all that screaming and thrashing and tearing flesh you managed to actually nick him with your claws, you'd never know it. The only thing you know is that at some point, the pain went from you actively being torn apart to just being broken, cawing weakly in that uncontrollable way as you smeared iridescent orange all around you. 

A hoarse scream to your right drew your attention. Somehow, the most shocking sight of all: your Bro, on his back this time. Jack, with Bro's sword in his hand, plunging the sword into Bro's chest. Hammering it down with a stomp of his foot, growling out "Stay. _Down_."

You don't know if you passed out then, if you blocked out the memory, if some things are too painful for even paradox space to repeat. But the bubble always skips, and you're by Bro's side, Noir nowhere to be seen, orange and red mixing in the most gruesome crime scene you've ever witnessed (and being from a doomed timeline, you've seen some shit).

He's pale. He's pale, soaking in his own blood, fingers shaking, and when he looks up at you and says, "Hey, Dave," you feel like you're supposed to start crying, but you can't. You don't know if it's the bird part of you or the sprite part of you or the _you_ part of you but you can't cry, you just can't. 

Instead, you say, "What do I do now?" and god, you have never hated yourself more than at that moment.

One of his hands twitches, and you think he meant to lift it and touch you, and like maybe you should lift it for him? But you don't want to touch him, don't want him to touch you. Instead his eyebrows furrow and he says, "Whatever you're supposed to do."

You bite your lip on saying anything else. Wait in silence, blood throbbing out of your wing stump, out of your abdomen, getting cold and sticky on the ground. Wait for what he said to make sense. For him to say something else.

At some point, you realized he stopped breathing, and left.

That's how it happened in real life; that's how it happens in the bubbles. Like you're afraid to break the cycle, afraid to see what happens if one of these days you actually deviated from the memory. Tried to hold back the blood or go for help. Held his hand instead of shying away. Did fucking _something_.

But really, you think, you just keep letting it happen because it did happen. Not in a doomed timeline, not to an alt self, not even to Dave, real Dave, alpha Dave.

It happened to _you_ , and it's the only moment with Bro that was ever yours. Even if it was his last.


End file.
